This is a column about politics — mostly national, because it was decided that as local editor of The Post, perhaps I shouldn’t take opinions on the happenings of Athens City Council or Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly’s office.
Off the bat, I’d like to say two things.
First, I offer a disclaimer: The only two opinion pieces I have ever had published in a newspaper were in The Post, and they were both about Kanye West’s awesomeness. I sincerely hope that doesn’t take away my credibility in the mind of anyone reading this page when I start writing about America’s foreign and domestic policies.
Secondly, a bit about me: I love politics but I strongly believe that it gets stupid really quickly when folks — especially columnists, whom I feel have an obligation not to just pick a side but also to add something to the conversation — blindly make arguments solely for Democrats or Republicans.
I have a perfect example.
Someone sent to me a headline Monday that read “On MLK Day, tone-deaf Sarah Palin says Obama plays the race card.” I clicked the link.
The story was about a Facebook post Sarah Palin wrote on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that read in its entirety:
Happy MLK, Jr. Day!
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card."
See what I mean by politics can get stupid?
What a cheap shot. And even worse, it’s a cheap shot that is highly offensive and doesn’t even make any sense.
I’d love to know what Palin considers “playing the race card.”
It could be President Barack Obama’s quote in The New Yorker: “There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president. Now, the flipside of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because I’m a black president.”
But that just seems like fact, right? After all, there are people who don’t like black people. And there are people who don’t like white people, too. To each his or her own (I guess).
But I’d say “playing the race card” would be similar to playing the sex card. For example, a woman who is doing 75 mph in a school zone but flirts with a male officer in an attempt to get out of a ticket. In that vein, for Obama to be “playing the race card,” that would be like him saying the White House Press Corps only beat him up about the Obamacare rollout because he’s black.
Regardless of how “playing the race card” is defined by Palin or anyone else, including me, this is schoolyard behavior. This is using every little thing — even a federal holiday recognizing an American hero — to bash the other side.
What Palin said is disrespectful to King’s legacy because he was a man who wanted to bring this nation together, and Palin used MLK’s message in a polarizing fashion to tear people apart.
Joshua Jamerson is a junior studying journalism and local editor at The Post. What do you think about Sarah Palin’s remarks? Talk politics with him at jj360410@ohiou.edu.
